


Canary in the Coalmine

by orphan_account



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom, Marble Hornets
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Arson, Attempted Murder, Blood and Violence, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Falling In Love, Fire, Friendship, Gen, Gun Violence, Guns, Gunshot Wounds, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury Recovery, Love, Medical Trauma, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Murder, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Recovery, Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:01:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23401921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jay and Tim find themselves at the end of their journey sooner than expected. With strangers who know far too much, friends thought dead returning, and others coming out of The Operator's thrall are things finally becoming normal or is it the calm before the storm? And with Tim remembering things he would really rather forget and Jay spiralling into something neither of them understands can they keep together long enough without exploding from the building pressure?
Relationships: Alex Kralie & Jay Merrick & Brian Thomas & Timothy "Tim" Wright, Amy/Alex Kralie, Jay & Timothy "Tim" W., Jay Merrick & Everyone, Jay Merrick/Timothy "Tim" Wright, Jessica & Timothy "Tim" W., Jessica Locke & Jay Merrick
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	1. Hospital Nightmares

Tim was tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of fighting for his life, and most of all tired of the blackouts that left him waking up in the middle of nowhere wearing strange clothes and more often than not covered in blood and dirt, sometimes his own, sometimes not. He often felt as though he were the intruder in his own body, that he was some sort of parasite that had stamped down whatever it was that came out when he forgot his medication. His therapist had told him he needed to quit thinking that way just as often as she told him he should quit smoking. At this point, neither seemed to be on the table. He took a deep breath, grinding his cigarette against the grimy brick wall of the nameless motel he and Jay, his only friend, were currently staying at. He threw its remnants into what seemed to be a decades-old butt receptacle. Even if that wasn’t it’s original intention years of smoke damage and crusted flakes of half-burnt tobacco told him it was far too late for anyone to object to its current use. He made his way to the door of their room, looking over his shoulder as he slipped inside being careful not to be seen. He wondered, for a fleeting moment, about the after this, and if he would ever stop watching for others watching him. He shook off the thought. It wouldn’t be smart to dwell on anything other than the present. 

“Anything going on out there?” Jay asked as a yawn distorted his speech. His eyes were rimmed red with bags under them from lack of sleep and his hair was a mess. To say he looked like shit would be an understatement, but he couldn’t say much as he could only assume he looked the same or worse.

“No, it’s quiet.” Tim had never liked the quiet. It meant being alone. Alone with your thoughts, alone with yourself, alone with that thing. Tim shuddered but attempted to calm himself as he tried to run through mental exercises his therapist gave him. They didn’t work. “I’m going to shower. You should probably wrap up whatever you’re working on, you look dead.”

“Yeah, I’ll be done soon, I’m just looking through older entries on the channel. Just in case.” Jay turned back to his computer, keys clacking as he reviewed notes on older entries in a word document. Tim went into the bathroom, locking the door behind him. Even for what was currently going on he thought that Jay seemed a little more paranoid than necessary, but who was he to say anything? He hadn’t even noticed the blackouts were back until much later than he would like because he was too busy pretending to have a normal life. Pretending. That was what he seemed to be best at these days. Cover your ears and you can’t hear the truth and you can continue living like there’s nothing wrong. Close your eyes and pretend you don’t smell that smoke, pretend you don’t feel the heat from the other side of that locked door, and there isn’t a fire. Put on a mask and have selective memory and pretend you're not a freak chasing people around in the woods, or a monster trying to hurt someone. Tim closed his eyes and counted to ten. It didn’t help.

“You’re still at it?” Tim asked as he walked out of the bathroom. Immediately he grabbed his medication from where it was hidden under the bed and took one. It had to have been at least an hour later and Jay was still staring at his computer screen with dead eyes. He didn’t respond. “Jay? Are you okay?”  
His head whipped backwards as Tim spoke, startling him. His pupils were small and his gaze vacant yet pointed, as though he were staring at something through him rather than at him. This didn’t seem like Jay. Seemingly as soon as it occurred it ended, Jay blinking and looking at Tim with a confused expression.

“Is something wrong?” He asked, no doubt running all the possible things that could have gone wrong for them at this moment. Was Alex at the door? Was the hooded man in the bathroom?

“No, nothing is wrong, are- are you okay, Jay?” Tim asked as he clicked back into reality. 

“Yeah, I’m fine, why? Are you okay?” He asked in return, tilting his head, no doubt wondering if he was about to blackout again.

“Yeah, I just wanted to check on you seeing as you 're still at it.” He replied. He could’ve sworn Jay said something out of his breath, but he only shrugged and shut the laptop. “What time is it anyway?”

“Two AM,” Jay responded as both of them prepared to try to fall asleep, aware that at best one of them would get a fitful rest ridden with nightmares, and at the worst, neither of them would be able to close their eyes out of fear. Tim suspected that the reason Jay didn’t want to stay in hotels as often was due to the same fear that kept his eyes open. Fear of losing the only person you think you have, fear of losing access to all of the proof keeping you sane, fear of forgetting. The last of those fears was a much more tangible one for Tim. That was one he could personally understand to the fullest, seeing as it was the one he had the most experience with. Seven months is a lot of memory to lose, and you never really get it back.

Tim was tired for the same reasons as before, but physically as well. If this whole thing didn’t kill him his newfound addiction to coffee might. By the time he got out of bed, Jay was already half packed.

“We have to go, now.” was all that he said as he tossed Tim’s duffel bag towards him.

“What’s going on?” Tim asked, never quite sure when things were precautionary or when they were absolutely necessary. “Is Alex here?”

“No I- I just had a feeling. A really bad feeling. And a weird dream, but that isn’t as important.” Jay was erratic, paranoid, and clearly disturbed by something that may or may not have been unfounded. Tim didn’t judge, he had had enough of that in his childhood to know that judging only made the judged hate your guts. He packed everything into his bag and soon after the two of them were checked out and on the road again.

Tim always watched the forest and edge of the road when they drove, wanting to be sure they weren’t being tracked. At this point, they could never know when they were being watched and followed, and it was much safer to assume someone was always watching. Tim felt himself drifting off and tried to snap himself awake. It worked, for a little while, but then the need for rest became so powerful he passed out before he realized what was happening. 

The dream began with a scream. It was someone else in the hospital and Tim assumed it was the usual game of ‘I’m going to scream for the next five hours until I get basically tranqed so I don’t have to deal with whatever is wrong with me for twelve hours.” A game that usually worked. Tim was alone. He had another episode and they had locked him in his room. He sat with his back to the metal door and every once and a while would stand up to stretch his legs and walk around the small space he currently called home. It was after five or six of these cycles that he heard a new noise. It sounded like the snapping of twigs and as Tim leaned against the door to hear it better he reeled back. The door was as hot as a stovetop. The hospital was on fire, and he was trapped alone in his room with no feasible way out. Of course, he could always try to jump. At the very least he would break his legs and at the very worst- He wondered if that would even be a problem. As the smoke began to billow in under the door he thought about how much he wanted to spite this place and everyone who had led to him being shoved in it. He began walking around the room, looking for any way out. He banged on the walls, he screamed, but no one came. He thought about the tall man, how if he was real, how if he wasn't just something in his head, he could indirectly help him out of here through trying to kill him, or whatever he actually tried to do. And then the hallucination himself burst forward in Tim’s mind, filling it with static as he fell to the floor in a coughing fit. His vision blurred, and he felt the fire outside creep in ever closer. The tall man, the hallucination, reached towards him. Tim tried to get away, but couldn’t find the strength through the static that felt as though it filled his body causing him to atrophy.

Tim woke up screaming, causing Jay to swerve the car. He stopped as soon as he realized where he was, that he wasn’t there anymore. That he wasn’t a scared kid trapped in a room with a very real monster that the entire world tried to convince him wasn’t real. Even though he wasn’t actually back there on the hospital floor the burns on his back felt as real and as fresh as though he had just woken up on the rec yard grass.

“Tim are you alright?” Jay asked as he righted the car. “You seem-”

“Pull over the car.” He stated. 

“What why we-”

“Just pull over the car, Jay!” Tim shouted, opening the door and jumping out before it had even fully stopped moving. As soon as he was in the ditch he fell to his knees and threw up in the tall grass. Jay approached him slowly, likely worried if it was actually still him. He didn’t say anything.   
“Wow, you two losers are a mess.” An unfamiliar voice said a few feet away. Tim looked up to see a young man wearing a bandanna over the lower half of his face. He laughed suddenly and visibly tried to stop himself. “Sorry, Sorry. I’m Toby, I’m a hitchhiker, care to be kind and give me a ride?”

“Fuck off.” Tim coughed. He got bad vibes from this guy as though he could sense ulterior motives coming off of him. Of course, Jay was always willing to trust someone and seemed to have a broken sixth sense.

“Sorry about my friend, feel free to hop in the back. We’ll be back on the road in a minute. Where are you headed?”

“There’s an abandoned hospital somewhere nearby that I want to check out. I’m a filmmaker following a missing person case.” Tim’s heart stopped. “It’s actually a few cases, but the most notable is Alex Kralie. It’s a crazy story, not a lot of people know about it but there’s a ton of weird circumstances around it.”

Tim gave Jay a look that screamed ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ But it was far too late to tell the kid to scram, seeing as he was already in the back seat.

“What the hell!” He whisper-hissed to Jay. “We can’t trust anyone, and you just invite some random dude who then reveals he knows way too much about everything going on.”

“We don’t know how much he actually knows!” Jay said, trying to laugh it off but clearly scared. They both quit talking as soon as they got into the car.

“Say, you two look awfully familiar, do I know you?” Toby asked as he set his duffel bag on the floor. Something inside of it clinked with a metallic noise against the framing of the bottom of the chair. The first thing Tim thought of was a gun, and that this guy must be working with Alex. He gripped the armrest tightly. This was going to be a long ride.


	2. Axe to Grind

Most of the car ride passed in silence, aside from the occasional jolt or random noise from Toby. He apologized, mentioning his Tourettes before going back to fiddling with the small, cheap camera he had brought with him.

“What are your guys’ names anyway?” Toby asked as he pulled a laptop out of his duffel bag and began to click away at the keys.

“Uh, I’m Jay and this is Tim,” Jay replied. The road was empty with trees on either side. Tim felt claustrophobic, practically trapped in the car with a potentially dangerous stranger. “Where are you headed, anyway? I mean, you said around Tuscaloosa a little while ago but anywhere specific?”

“Oh, uh..” Toby paused for a moment, which Tim didn’t like. It felt suspicious to him like he was trying to come up with something on the fly. “Old Bryce Mental Hospital. It might be closer to Northport now that I think about it, but it’s part of my uh, investigation into the missing persons.”

As soon as he mentioned the familiar hospital Tim tensed up and the car grew silent. The tension in the air could have been cut with a knife.

“So…” Jay spoke up, attempting to break the awkward silence. “What’s this disappearance you’re investigating anyway? It sounds familiar.”

Tim wanted to kill him. Jay was being reckless and putting both of them at risk. If this guy was working for Alex as he suspected then they were both being put in danger. Not only was he specifically looking into places they had been, but he was also potentially being put in danger himself by being around them.

“Oh, it’s fascinating! This guy named Alex Kralie was filming something in college years ago and he suddenly just dropped it. A while later someone came in on the Something Awful forums talking about the tapes Alex had given him. No one who knew him knows where he is or what he’s up to, but some rumours have been flying around that he’s gone AWOL and is trying to lure people into the woods to kill them. I don’t put a lot of stock into those rumours but there are some other interesting ones-” He paused for a moment as his face jerked rapidly. He muttered a curse under his breath. “Some other interesting theories claim that he was kidnapped, while others say he disappeared so his girlfriend could commit insurance fraud. One aspect that my fans haven’t put together yet is this; after Alex disappeared, others started to disappear who knew him, primarily those who were associated with the student film production. I’m trying to track some of them down to ask a few questions, but the only lead I’ve got is a youtube channel that I still need to watch.” 

“That’s neat. What’s uh, what’s the channel?” Jay asked, at this point probing for information on how much this guy knew. 

“Well, there’s two but the one I’m focusing on is called Marble Hornets. I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet but I have the first few ones downloaded to sift through. I’m going to do that now.” Before anything else could be said Toby slipped a pair of beat-up headphones and was engrossed in his laptop.

“What the fuck!” Tim whispered. “We need to get rid of this guy. It’s not only potentially dangerous for us but if he sticks around it could be dangerous for him!”

“I don’t know why you're being so paranoid! I actually have a good feeling about this, what if he can help us?” Jay asked, glancing back to make sure Toby was still distracted.

“I don’t understand why you’re not being paranoid enough! Jay if you haven’t noticed we’re kind of in a life or death situation where we’re being hunted half the time and the other half we’re avoiding other people so they don’t get pulled into this messed up circle!” Tim paused when Toby looked up from his laptop.

“Are you guys alright? You’re yelling… A lot.” He asked as he took off his headphones. “I mean, if I’m causing a problem I’d like to know.”

“Everything’s fine! Also, we’re pulling up near the hospital, but we’ll have to walk from here.” Jay said as he pulled into the parking in front of the gate that blocked off the path. 

“We?” Tim said, raising his brow, clearly not interested in going back into the hospital, especially with a stranger. 

“Yes. We, Tim. Weren’t you just saying how dangerous it is?” Jay snapped. “If it’s dangerous it’s better to stick together, even with someone you don’t know all too well, right, Tim?”

“I’m going to step out and start walking. You guys figure out whatever… the problem you’re having.” Toby said as he slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and began trekking down the old gravel sideroad. 

“Jay I don’t know what’s gotten into you in the past day or so but you’re acting careless,” Tim said as soon as Toby was out of sight. “It bothers me because your normally not so adamant about a stupid decision. Why haven’t you just given this up and dropped the guy off somewhere?”

“Because I’m tired of it being just me and you against the world, and I think if this guys already looking into stuff, if he’s already going to these landmarks, then he’s probably already in too deep and pulling him into our stuff wouldn’t make his life much worse than it’s already going to be!” Jay exclaimed, sighing as the weight of it came off his chest. “I’m not a person made for being almost alone! I’ve lost so much, Tim. My parents think I’m dead because I haven’t talked to them since my apartment burnt down, all my friends are dead or trying to kill me, and I feel like we’re not even friends just… people trapped with each other because of shitty circumstances! I just… I haven’t been thinking and I don’t know why and that scares me a little, but looking at it now I think I’m just scared that I’ll mess something up and you’ll be gone and I’ll really be alone.”  
“I get it, Jay. I mean, I lost one of my closest friends because of this shit. Even if it started as just sticking together to survive I feel like we’re still friends.” Tim looked out the window at the gutted hospital peeking over the trees. “The only thing that would get me to leave is if one of us died, which isn’t going to happen unless we both quit being careless. I don’t want us to get angry and have a giant fight over something that shouldn’t even matter. Anyway, I think we should probably get walking.”

They both left the car, Tim thinking about what Jay had said. Over the last day or two, ever since Jay had looked at him with that stare that told him Jay hadn’t been around, he had been getting more irrational and Angry. He knew exactly what this meant, but didn’t want to admit it and so brushed it off to the side for now. They caught up with Toby shortly after, who they found staring off into the woods next to the hospital, twitching intermittently.

“Hey, everything alright?” Tim asked, causing Toby to jump. He watched Toby fish something out of his bag that he quickly concealed in his palm.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. You guys go ahead and make sure nothing’s collapsed in the front area. I just need to check something quickly.” He replied, clearly anxious and wound up over something.

“Alright man, if you need anything let us know.” Tim watched out of the corner of his eye as Jay and he made their way through the front entrance. Toby popped the cap off of a pill bottle, pouring two into his hand which he proceeded to swallow dry. Tim felt uneasy but decided to just keep it in mind for now instead of throwing out accusations. For all he knew it could be medication for Toby to control his tics or something else entirely. On the other hand, it could be related to everything, and if so Tim had to talk to him about it. The only other person who seemingly needed the same pills as Tim had been the hooded man, which was an interesting correlation with this stranger who had seemingly appeared out of thin air. Toby walked in behind them shortly after.

“So, do you guys know the place?” Toby asked, clearly referencing Jay’s knowledge of how to get here and that they’d have to walk here.

“During college, I came here for some film stuff, mostly location scouting that didn’t pan out.” Jay lied, much to Tim’s thanks.

“Oh, you’re a filmmaker too?” Toby asked, tilting his head as he fiddled with his small camera, likely beginning to record for the research he was doing.

“Yeah, or I was at least, not anymore,” Jay said, partially telling the truth. “We should get walking, the place is pretty big. Anything specific you’re looking for?”

“Do you know a quick way to the wing that burned down? I’m looking into a possible relation to Alex because of some tips I found online of him potentially being related to some arson cases. My current theory is that he was here during the fire, either as an inpatient or a visitor.” Tim cringed at how close he was to the truth, only with the wrong people in some positions in his view of events.

“Yeah we know where that is but there are no real shortcuts, follow me,” Jay said as he led them through the corridor, checking every room to make sure no one snuck up on them. After a little while of walking, they reached the area of the hospital that had burned down, causing it to close. The scars on Tim’s back tingled. For the first time they had been together Toby pulled down his bandanna, revealing a large burn scar that twisted down the left side of his face and neck, and presumably the rest of his body. His teeth were visible through where his cheek should have been, and he quickly pulled a bandage and medical tape out of the bag, putting it over the wound.

“Sorry about that, I know it’s ugly but that bandanna was starting to smell.” Toby apologized.  
“Don’t worry about it man, it’s no big deal,” Tim replied. His eyes scan the corridor with its smoke-marked sealing and burns across the crumbling drywall and cracked tile. Tim’s mind flashed briefly with memories, the door suddenly being open, his back covered in pain, and then numb, trying to run through the hall, the screams of the others, almost making it, and then he snapped out of it.

“Are you okay, Tim? You kind of blacked out for a second there. Toby went up ahead he-” Jay was cut off as they heard a scream, both of them rushing forward towards it, fearing the worst. When they found him he was sitting in the corner of a burnt-out room, his knees pressed against his chest as he sobbed quietly.

“Lyra I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to- I didn’t mean to! Please, I’m sorry!” he mumbled out. He looked up for a brief moment, locking eyes with Tim. “No no no no, not you again, you ruined my life, you stalked me, and you made me- you made me do a bad thing. And now I’m here and I don’t know why because he brought me here and so I’m latching onto the only clues I have left. I took my meds, why won’t you leave me alone!”

“Toby?..” Jay asked. His gaze shifted over to Jay’s eyes. Toby was in the middle of some sort of episode, not realizing where he was or who he was talking to, interpreting Tim as some sort of monster. “Toby is there anything I can do to help you?”

“L-Lyra?” he stuttered. He stared in silence for a moment before a choked sob escaped his throat and he pushed himself against the wall further. “Leave me alone Lyra you're supposed to be resting and I know what happens every time you appear.”

“Toby, it’s me, Jay. The guy who brought you to check out the abandoned hospital. I’m not Lyra.” Tim watched from the sidelines as Jay tried to calm down Toby, feeling that his intervention would only make things worse.

“Jay? But you’re... No, Lyra- No that’s not right…” Toby said as the hallucination continued to plague him, clearly becoming confused as Jay attempted to forcefully pull him out of it. “You’re not Jay you’re- you're Lyra? But.. that doesn’t make any sense because Lyra… Lyra’s gone and she’s not a ghost because my doctor… my doctor explained it…”

“Toby, there’s no Lyra, there’s no monster, it’s just me and Tim.”

“Jay.. Tim...:” his legs uncurled and he looked up, blinking like he was trying to break through the fog of his mind. “But..”

He looked down at his hands, and then seemed to fully snap out of it. He looked around rapidly and as soon as he caught sight of his duffel bag he scrambled towards it. He tore through it, searching for something, casting a hatchet across the floor as well as a mask and goggles. Tim stepped back as the blade of the hatchet spun by his feet.

“Shit shit shit,” Toby muttered to himself as he finally found the pill bottle he was looking for. He twisted it open quickly and dumped some into his palm, swallowing them quickly. They all remained silent for a moment until Tim spoke up. 

“What the hell is this for?” Tim asked, picking up the hatchet in his hand and examining it. It had a wooden handle and a simple metal head and was older than most would want a hatchet to be.

“Ah, shit,” Toby said when he turned around and saw what Tim was holding. “I promise, I can explain but you- you can’t just call me crazy.”

“It would need to be something wild for us to think it’s crazy.” Jay chimed in.


End file.
